Actuators are widely used in all areas of mechanical design. Generally, actuators are transducers that transform an input signal into mechanical motion. Actuators may use any combination of electrical motors, pneumatic and hydraulic pistons, relays, comb drives, piezoelectric elements, thermal bimorphs, and similar devices to provide mechanical motion. An actuator may provide any combination of linear, curved, or rotary forces/motion.
Motors are commonly used in actuators when circular motions are needed, but can also be used for linear applications by transforming circular to linear motion, e.g., using screw drives. Other actuators may intrinsically linear, such as those using linear motors. Actuators may include a wide variety of mechanical elements to change the nature of the motion provided by the actuating/transducing element, including levers, ramps, screws, cams, crankshafts, gears, pulleys, constant-velocity joints, ratchets, etc.
Actuators may vary widely in size and power. Very large actuators may be used in applications such as dam gates or construction equipment. On the other end of the spectrum, actuators have been developed at micro- and nano-scales that may be used for such applications as robotics and medical technology. One technological area that commonly uses actuators is industrial controls, including specialty areas of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and fire detection/suppression.
Modern actuators used in HVAC and fire/smoke systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated. The added functionality is due at least in part to the availability of inexpensive and powerful digital processing circuitry. For example, actuators may have electronic controlled and integrated auxiliary switches, multiple input selectable input modes, and adjustments for such settings as minimum/maximum travel, timing, speed, etc. At the same time, the actuator products themselves are shrinking in size due to concerns regarding ease of installation, weight, power consumption, performance, etc. As a result, it is becoming more difficult to allow such actuators to be easily accessed by people for setting up and changing built-in automatic features of the actuators. In addition, externally mounted controls (e.g., switches, potentiometers, etc.) are often difficult to access and see in many installations. Further, hard mounted controls are susceptible to environmental factors (e.g., dust, fluids, vibration) that can degrade these types of controls and thereby reduce reliability.
Therefore, a sophisticated yet user friendly way of providing control and setup of actuators is desirable. Such control provisions should allow such actuators to keep small form-factors, and reduce the degrading effects of the operational environment. The present invention fulfills these and other needs, and offers other advantages over the prior art.